Table of Contents

To Stand Above All...

Week 3 breathed some much needed life into the North American LCS. The first two weeks were dominated by veteran teams and featured an alarming lack of upsets. This led many fans to expect stagnant competition, with assured winners coming into each match. Thankfully, Week 3 would alleviate some of these concerns. The first match of the week featured Vulcun, then 0–5, stunning CLG with a commanding victory. Vulcun continued to wreak havoc and finished 3–0 for the week, jumping from dead last to 6th place. CLG dropped a second game that day to dignitas and ended 1–2. Both of these highly unexpected outcomes proved that match-ups are not so clear-cut. Competition is still alive and well in the NA LCS.

Who Has Risen?

Overall Standings

Bringing Down the Throne

Week 3 Recaps

[Day 1]February 21, 2013

Vul vs CLG

Counter Logic Gaming played their first match in thirteen days against the 0–5 Vulcun Command. After CLG's solid play in Week 1 and Vulcun's previous lackluster performance, odds were heavily in CLG’s favor. CLG, drafting Syndra for LiNk and the newly-buffed Nasus for HotshotGG, indicated their intention to continue their impressive and innovative play from Week 1. Yet it was Xmithie on Hecarim, after early ganks in Top lane, who secured a double-kill first blood and obtained the lead. Chauster paid another visit Top to strike back at Vulcun, but Zuna and Muffinqt disengaged and retaliated, allowing Mancloud the easy clean up in a three-for-one exchange. Vulcun built upon this lead for the rest of the game by taking every Dragon, catching and killing out-of-position CLG members, and forcing CLG to abandon their turrets. Vulcun looked invincible as they demolished CLG in fight after fight. Finally, Vulcun finished off CLG's Nexus at 37:00 without CLG taking more than one Vulcun tower. After five losses, Vulcun finally looked focused and prepared in an impressive Week 3 victory over veteran favorites CLG.

Crs vs GGU

In Curse and GGU's Week 1 match, GGU had an early leg up on Curse, but Curse managed to turn the game around with their superior late game experience and execution. Their rematch began with a strange team composition from GGU, including a Jungle Leona for NintendudeX and a Top lane Fizz for ZionSpartan. Curse pulled ahead early by giving Cop first blood with a four-man gank on Bot lane, but GGU fought back by taking Dragons and turrets. At 20:50, GGU took another Dragon and engaged on to Nyjacky, but Curse collapsed on their opponents and traded one death for an ace. Two and a half minutes later, Curse turned a Red buff steal into another ace and a lead that GGU could no longer contest. A Baron, three inhibitors, and many ineffective GGU ultimates later, Curse destroyed the GGU Nexus to extend their undefeated streak to 6-0. GGU's unorthodox strategies attempted to unbalance their opponents, but Curse’s standard and powerful play prevailed once more.

dig vs CLG

Still seeking a Week 3 victory, CLG's next match was a far greater challenge: the on-fire Dignitas. The early game was an all-out brawl between the veteran teams with each trading kills, turrets, and objectives. CLG maintained a slight gold and kill lead overall in the first twenty minutes, at least partially due to some silly mistakes by dig. However, the strength of Dignitas' skill and composition was brought to fruition at 27:00 when scarra and imaqtpie combined their damage and utility to great effect, helping their team to ace CLG and take CLG’s Mid inhibitor turret. At 30:30, Dignitas executed the same salvo in another teamfight after taking Baron to once again ace CLG and eventually win the match. The Season 2 Troika teams proved to be close in skill through most of the game, but Dignitas' superior composition was too strong to deny. With this loss, CLG ended their first LCS day in two weeks with an 0-2 record while Dignitas continued their winning streak.

coL vs Vul

Vulcun's second match of the day was against compLexity and after their victory over CLG, the lesser challenge of coL seemed easily surmountable. Sure enough, Vulcun gained a huge lead at 2:10 when brunch U and M eye A were annihilated by Zuna and Muffinqt. The advantages continued to pile up for Vulcun, resulting in a 4K gold lead at only 13:00 and a whopping 13K lead at 27:00. coL could do nothing as Vulcun slowly but surely picked them apart using a similar strategy as they used against CLG. Vulcun finally struck the killing blow around 32:50 without losing a single turret or champion. They utterly dominated coL, leaving spectators to wonder how Vulcun went from punching bag to gladiator in just one week.

[Day 2] February 22, 2013

MRN vs GGU

In GGU's second match of the week they faced off against the winless Team MRN. After getting utterly crushed in their first two LCS games, Team MRN was under a lot of scrutiny. Luckily, they were able to win back a little bit of their fans' faith with a victory over GGU. To say this game started slowly is a bit of an understatement. First blood didn't occur until 25 minutes into the game. Despite the lack of kills up until that point, Team MRN had secured a 6K gold lead through a one turret advantage as well as picking up three Dragons to GGU's zero. This gold lead was more then apparent in the first major team fight as Team MRN rolled over GGU with MegaZero picking up a triple kill as Renekton. GGU tried to turn the situation around by barreling down Mid lane as five and engaging on Team MRN, but all this resulted in for them was a 0-3 team fight for their troubles. Sitting at a 12K gold deficit there wasn't much GGU could do to stay in the game. Team MRN stayed in complete control of the game pushing into GGU's base with impunity and picking up the win without a single death.

CLG vs coL

Going into this game 0-2 for the week certainly wasn't how CLG envision their Week 3. Just the day before, compLexity received a disappointing defeat at the hands of Vulcun, despite their solid debut against Curse in Week 2. This game gave us our first pro look at Thresh in the hands of coL M eye A. While it was refreshing to finally see a Thresh walk onto Summoner’s Rift, M eye A didn’t maximize Thresh’s potential in his debut match. The game started fairly even with both teams trading fairly even in kills. CLG eked out a gold lead by taking a turret advantage, but the game equalized after an incredibly extended fight. HotshotGG would start things off with a Teleport+Homeguard combo to quickly rush behind behind compLexity's inner Bot turret, but would only land Unstoppable Force on Chuuper's Cassiopeia. Chauster followed up on the engage and the teams traded 2-2. Not content with going even, compLexity continued to chase down CLG and turned the entire skirmish into a 5-3 trade. However, this still wasn't enough to keep compLexity in the game as they were still behind in terms of gold and map pressure. A single wiffed Petrifying Gaze by Chuuper lead to a 4-0 trade for CLG and compLexity never recovered. From there CLG was able to win a few more skirmishes and eventually takedown the Nexus.

MRN vs Vul

If Vulcun could pull off a victory against Team MRN, they would complete the week with an impressive 3-0 record, which was crucial after 0-5 start. The game got off to a frantic start with Vulcun successfully invading Team MRN's Blue buff and stealing it, but ClakeyD retaliated and stole Vulcun's Blue for himself. Team MRN struck first by picking up the first tower of the game, despite Vulcun initiating the lane switch. ecco continued the momentem by picking up first blood on Mancloud. Xmithie was there for the revenge kill but Team MRN had already secured a 1.5K gold lead at five minutes into the game. Team MRN continued to control the mid game smiting an uncontested Dragon and avoided any unnecessary deaths. The next time Dragon came up Team MRN boldly placed themselves inside the Dragon pit, slayed the Dragon, and engaged on Vulcun picking up three kills for one. Team MRN continued to stay in control of the game until the next Dragon came up. This time things went wrong for them and with superior positioning Vulcun was able to clean up the fight 3-1. Vulcun used this momentum to manuever around the map and apply pressure by taking down a couple more of Team MRN's towers as well as Baron. Vulcun's siege proved too much for Team MRN as Vulcun picked up kill after kill to further expand their gold lead. While trying to fend off Vulcun from their inner Bot turret, Team MRN couldn't stack up in the team fight and were promptly aced, leading to a Vulcun victory.

GGU vs coL

This game turned into somewhat of a consolation match for both teams. They both played three games this week and came into this match 0-2. At least one of them would come out with a win once all was said and done. compLexity initiated an impressive level one roam, not picking up any kills but burned DontMashMe's Cleanse and Flash and Bloodwater's Flash. Despite this, first blood was netted by GGU as NintendudeX pulled off a level two jungle invade on Lautemortis. Xin Zhao's incredible early burst damage in combination with a Lee Sin Resonating Strike from ZionSpartan was enough to secure the kill despite Lautemortis attempting to Flash away. GGU continued to roam around the map taking Bot tower and picking up two kills Top lane, including yet another amazing Resonating Strike from ZionSpartan. GGU was in control of the game until a terrible team fight at Dragon led to their team’s demise. They would still stay close overall but a questionable Baron call put them in another bad spot. While successfully conquering Baron Nashor, GGU lost four members for compLexity's one. Through turrets and free Dragons, compLexity established a 6K gold lead over GGU. GGU over committed on brunch ü while trying to defend their base but he would be saved by Stand United from Shen. From there, compLexity cleaned up the straggling members of GGU and finished the game.

In the King's Name

Player of the Week

Real Supports take the spear for their carries. Dying is optional.

Vulcun came out of nowhere this week. After five straight losses, it was difficult to imagine their lineup accomplishing anything without far more practice against their LCS opponents. Yet this week Vulcun was the showstopper, surprising viewers with their well-executed strategies and joining Curse and Dignitas as the only teams to go 3-0 in an LCS week. This amazing turnaround was only made possible by the incredible play of Vulcun's lineup, who adroitly adapted to bans and picks in such a way as to get a comfortable, specific, and powerful team composition in each of their games. Vulcun's entire lineup was at the top of their game this week and each player deserves commendation. However, our NA Player of the Week could only be the AP Mid that crushed his laning opponents and consistently pushed enemy teams away from their turrets, mandatorycloud.

Though Xmithie's persistent ganks on Zuna and Muffinqt's laning opponents kept the camera on Vulcun's bot lane pair, Mancloud destroyed his opponents from behind the scenes. In Vulcun's game against CLG, all eyes were up top when Vulcun took first blood and a follow-up kill, but when the camera returns to mid, Mancloud had just finished railing on LiNk's Syndra. The fact that Mancloud could exert so much pressure on a level 6 Syndra, an extremely high burst champion in the capable hands of CLG's Mid laner, is a testament to his aptitude in his lane and with Nidalee. His next move on the map was even more impressive, running top to clean up the low health members of CLG after their dive onto Zuna and muffinqt. The coordination, communication, and map awareness required to execute these countergank illustrates Mancloud's ability to quickly respond to the ever-changing scenarios of the game, a skill whose importance cannot be underestimated.

In spite of his laning prowess, his ability to exert pressure and deal terrible, terrible damage in the late game is what impressed us the most. In all three of Vulcun's Week 3 games, Mancloud controlled his team's opponents, forcing them into unfavorable decisions at best and massacres at worst. The long-range, high damage dealing Mids were his comfort zone in last week's games. With Nidalee, Mancloud was always in the right place at the right time, easily avoided his opponents' efforts to shut him down, and his spears were practicallymagnetic. As Kobe observed, "So basically mandatorycloud's spears are gonna zone the entire team of CLG..." When his Nidalee was finally banned out by MRN, Mancloud's Lux fulfilled the same zoning and sniping role, initiating teamfights by wiping Heartbeat off the map. Vulcun's marvelous Week 3 comeback would be a mere fantasy without the arcane dominion exerted upon Summoner's Rift by Vulcun Mancloud, earning him our praise and respect as NA Player of the Week.

Wards in the Brush

Predictions for Week 4

Week 4 is incredibly important, being the first of two Super Weeks in the Spring Season. Each team plays five games — potential for drastic changes to occur in the standings. It will also indicate as to how these teams stack up against one another. While we can compare teams’ overall records, some head-to-head matches have yet to occur, such as the highly anticipated Curse vs TSM match.

One of the biggest surprises of Week 3 was Vulcun going 3–0, including a huge upset over CLG. The question remains if they can maintain their momentum and further increase their position in the standings. Likewise, Team Dignitas, 4–0 over the last two weeks, looks to continue their win streak. On the other hand, CLG looks for redemption: they fell to 4th place during their bye week and failed to reclaim their position with a 1–2 performance in Week 3. This also marks the return of TSM after their bye week. All eyes will be on them to see if they used their off days effectively in preparation of their upcoming matches. Finally, we have the current LCS leader, Curse. This might be the week that Curse finally drops a game, as they have an incredibly difficult schedule playing top top teams, TSM, CLG, and dig. As last week showed, upsets can happen at any time so expect plenty of action and a few surprises going into Week 4 of the NA LCS.

Vulcun - After their Week 3 winning streak, Vulcun is poised to take yet another victory over CLG. Perhaps CLG will have studied Vulcun's style to recover from last week's embarrassment, but this is exactly the kind of underestimation that CLG might make. Vulcun, on the other hand, is riding the high of conquest and won't want to fall now.

TSM - TSM's return match is against the still struggling compLexity lineup. While coL managed to find their first victory last week, it was not without flaws — the kind of flaws an organization like TSM will exploit for a win.

CLG - GGU's roster troubles seem to be without end, despite the early promise of the team. Without their full lineup, GGU won't even have a chance to beat CLG's well-coordinated and highly-experienced players.

Curse - If coL can't defeat TSM, then they will similarly struggle against an in-form Curse. The rematch will look remarkably similar to the first, and coL will be lucky if they perform as well as they did in their debut week.

TSM - Once again, pitting a seasoned set of League of Legends pros against a half-full muster of weaker players is going to go poorly for the latter. Hopefully GGU will be able to resolve their attendance issues sooner rather than later because they won't be as competitive in the meantime.

dig - This match features two of the hottest teams coming into Week 4. After less than stellar starts from both of them, they are looking to prove their recent successes haven't been just a fluke. Vulcun was able to upset CLG last week, but we expect dig to come into this game very prepared: their sights set on proving they are hitting their stride.

CLG - Despite their lackluster Week 3 performance, CLG is still one of the strongest teams in the LCS. Team MRN showed some signs of life the same week, picking up their first win, but it's clear the skill disparity between these two teams is still quite large. Expect CLG to come out swinging in order to shut down Team MRN early and prevent any chance for an upset.

Curse - Out of the Season 2 Troika, dig is the first team to get a shot at Curse during the Super Week. Considering dig's recent success, they might have the best chance at handing Curse their first loss. dig will put up a good fight, but their Week 1 results still linger on our minds.

Vulcun - After a good showing against Curse, the staff was actually pretty high on compLexity. It now seems as some of that faith was misplaced due to a lack of knowledge, weighting our opinion too much based on one game. In contrast Vulcun has defied out expectation and are doing much better than we predicted. Expect them to turn their Week 3 momentum into several Week 4 wins.

TSM - Coming out of their bye week, TSM should have had a lot of time to practice and prepare for the Super Week, but they probably didn't dedicate much time preparing for Team MRN. Their last meeting was a complete stomp, featuring two pre-three-minute tower dives onto Team MRN's MegaZero. Team MRN is good at drawing throws out of inexperienced teams, but don't expect the veterans to fall for that.

TSM - Vulcun has already shown that they can take on the best of the best, but now the top half of the bracket knows to take them seriously. By this time of the week, TSM will be ready for the threat that is Vulcun, and a prepared TSM is nearly impossible to stop.

MRN - MRN's only LCS win so far was against the crippled GGU, and MRN is likely to repeat the feat in the coming week. Without their full roster, GGU remains in a compromised position that will be obvious from their losses.

Curse - These rival teams battled in Week 1, ending with a huge victory for Curse Gaming over many of their former teammates. If anyone can stop Curse's run through the LCS, it would be CLG at the top of their game. In Week 3 however, CLG was not at that zenith, so a Curse win seems likely.

Curse - Curse and TSM are finally going head-to-head for the first time in the LCS. These teams haven't met in a LAN setting for a long time so it will be interesting to see how they deal with one another. TSM had some on and off performances during Week 1 and 2, but so did Curse, winning some of the games they probably shouldn't have. This game should be a close and exciting one, but we still give the edge to Curse, whose recent high caliber performances cannot be denied

CLG - compLexity has a lot on the line this week. Having played the least amount of games they are still unknown and their performances have been inconsistent. They need to win a lot of games this week to make a statement and prove they can easily secure one of the top six spots. CLG is still a more well known quantity. While upsets happen, going with experience is almost always a good choice.

dig - Like most of the lower tier teams, Team MRN needs to win a lot of these games. Sadly the top teams are quite the imposing force. dig has looked impressive after Week 1 and has silenced a lot of critics. MRN needs the win, but dig is more likely to obtain it.

Vulcun - We round out the Super Week with a match that could have been so much more. If GGU had kept a stable roster, they and Vulcun could have been in a dead heat for fourth or fifth. Instead GGU is flailing and Vulcun is on the rise. As long as they play smart, this will be Vulcun's game.

Consistent excellence from the TL LoL staff. Thanks for yet another great post. I like this way of offering a single prediction, but I do not know if that was conscious decision or made due to the availability of the prognosticators. Interesting to see the prediction of another CLG upset by Vulcun. The rest of the predictions involving the Top 4 are pretty standard, but I'm REALLY excited to see the results of this week. I think at least one of the top 4 is due for a bad tumble and at least one of the challengers is due for a surge.

On February 27 2013 04:21 Takkara wrote:Consistent excellence from the TL LoL staff. Thanks for yet another great post. I like this way of offering a single prediction, but I do not know if that was conscious decision or made due to the availability of the prognosticators. Interesting to see the prediction of another CLG upset by Vulcun. The rest of the predictions involving the Top 4 are pretty standard, but I'm REALLY excited to see the results of this week. I think at least one of the top 4 is due for a bad tumble and at least one of the challengers is due for a surge.

On February 27 2013 04:21 Takkara wrote:Consistent excellence from the TL LoL staff. Thanks for yet another great post. I like this way of offering a single prediction, but I do not know if that was conscious decision or made due to the availability of the prognosticators. Interesting to see the prediction of another CLG upset by Vulcun. The rest of the predictions involving the Top 4 are pretty standard, but I'm REALLY excited to see the results of this week. I think at least one of the top 4 is due for a bad tumble and at least one of the challengers is due for a surge.

We decided that a single Staff prediction might benefit the articles more than multiple. It also gives us more room to try more features (maybe) for non-Super Weeks. =)

Cmon, predict an upset SOMEWHERE this weekend. No bravery in these predictions!

O there is one. CLG v Vulc.

Personally, I think CLG is going to be ready to deal with ManCloud this time around. Either they won't let him have a beastly poke champ like Nid or Lux, or they'll pick a team with power-engage or power-splitpush that the poking can't stop.CLG > Vulcan

But I predict an upset in Vulcan vs TSM when mancloud manmodes Regi in mid lane.Day 2:TSM < Vulcan

On February 27 2013 04:33 sylverfyre wrote:Cmon, predict an upset SOMEWHERE this weekend. No bravery in these predictions!

O there is one. CLG v Vulc.

It's so hard to >_> Aside from last week there was no real upsets during the first two weeks. Although in hindsight I would have liked to predict dig>Curse just because if they are going to lose this week I think it's going to be to dig.

On February 27 2013 04:33 sylverfyre wrote:Cmon, predict an upset SOMEWHERE this weekend. No bravery in these predictions!

O there is one. CLG v Vulc.

It's one of those weird thing. For example, I don't think that Curse is ACTUALLY going undefeated all week. But, looking at each match, Curse is the favorite for each. Who might beat them? I don't know. But dig vs Curse with blu-side dig will definitely be close.

On February 27 2013 04:21 Takkara wrote:Consistent excellence from the TL LoL staff. Thanks for yet another great post. I like this way of offering a single prediction, but I do not know if that was conscious decision or made due to the availability of the prognosticators. Interesting to see the prediction of another CLG upset by Vulcun. The rest of the predictions involving the Top 4 are pretty standard, but I'm REALLY excited to see the results of this week. I think at least one of the top 4 is due for a bad tumble and at least one of the challengers is due for a surge.

We are leaning towards a single unified staff prediction henceforth.

Edit: lol Asmo

Don't know if I like this, as I like to hear differing opinions. I guess for smaller less important games you can do a unified prediction, but for bigger events I'd like to hear why each member likes what team and why.

On February 27 2013 04:21 Takkara wrote:Consistent excellence from the TL LoL staff. Thanks for yet another great post. I like this way of offering a single prediction, but I do not know if that was conscious decision or made due to the availability of the prognosticators. Interesting to see the prediction of another CLG upset by Vulcun. The rest of the predictions involving the Top 4 are pretty standard, but I'm REALLY excited to see the results of this week. I think at least one of the top 4 is due for a bad tumble and at least one of the challengers is due for a surge.

We are leaning towards a single unified staff prediction henceforth.

Edit: lol Asmo

Don't know if I like this, as I like to hear differing opinions. I guess for smaller less important games you can do a unified prediction, but for bigger events I'd like to hear why each member likes what team and why.

The issue was for LCS NA matches all the predictions were the same. For bigger events we'll probably have different ones.

The problem with predictions for LCS is just that they're BO1. If it were say, a bo5, you could say your prediction is a 3-2 or 3-1 or 3-0 and it suddenly puts more emphasis on how close you think the teams are. Bo1 all you can do is say, yeah this team looks better right now. (And the standings already should tell you that.)

On February 27 2013 04:55 Lounge wrote:The problem with predictions for LCS is just that they're BO1. If it were say, a bo5, you could say your prediction is a 3-2 or 3-1 or 3-0 and it suddenly puts more emphasis on how close you think the teams are. Bo1 all you can do is say, yeah this team looks better right now. (And the standings already should tell you that.)

Yeah, in sports it's usually complicated by the fact that one team is the Away Team and one is the Home Team. Usually, even if one team is perceived as better than another, the fact that the better team is on the road results in trendy upset picks. In this case, all you can really use to differentiate picks is whether or not someone is on a hot streak or a cold streak. In this case that might mean you could predict CLG to continue their slow trend, or predict Vulcun to continue their hot streak.

I think the most likely case is that TSM stumbles (as much as I may hate to think that). After seeing what a week off did to CLG and knowing how poorly TSM plays during "day 1" situations, I could see them dropping a couple games before they regain their edge.

@Roffles:I like having a single, unified prediction because it means that the arguments went back and forth and we get to read the result of that discussion. Perhaps we can have one write-up, but have the individual votes of the writers shown separately? This is a bit like how ESPN will do their NFL picks every week. They don't do the write-up, but they show multiple voters picks side-by-side. I do enjoy that part of it because even in cases where, say, TSM is favored over Vulcun, it is interesting to see if it was a 5-0 for TSM or a 3-2.

I don't say this to refute anything you said, but I wanted to add a little more to my original position.

On February 27 2013 04:55 Lounge wrote:The problem with predictions for LCS is just that they're BO1. If it were say, a bo5, you could say your prediction is a 3-2 or 3-1 or 3-0 and it suddenly puts more emphasis on how close you think the teams are. Bo1 all you can do is say, yeah this team looks better right now. (And the standings already should tell you that.)

Yeah, in sports it's usually complicated by the fact that one team is the Away Team and one is the Home Team. Usually, even if one team is perceived as better than another, the fact that the better team is on the road results in trendy upset picks. In this case, all you can really use to differentiate picks is whether or not someone is on a hot streak or a cold streak. In this case that might mean you could predict CLG to continue their slow trend, or predict Vulcun to continue their hot streak.

Curse < DignitasLet's face it. Curse is on quite the tear, but they are not playing with absolute perfection. Somewhere, somebody is going to find a weakness in their armor, especially on a week like this where they have to play all 3 of the other top 4 teams. I predict Dignitas, who is on fire lately, to be the one

CLG > Vulcun CLG isn't going to let deja vu happen. Last weekend was awful for them, and they're going to be making sure they can handle mancloud's poke this time around.

TSM < VulcunIf mancloud plays anything like he did last week then he's going to walk all over Reginald, who is a major vulnerability on TSM. When Regi does well, he makes plays. When he does poorly, TSM can find themselves leaking pressure from a leaky mid lane. Add in the fact that Mancloud has shown himself capable of incredible roam and you have a recipe for an upset.

Is blue side consistently the left side of the official matchups? Would be interesting to note.

Marn are really raw but have a ton of potential. I loved their play on dragon after Vulcan used smite and laser to stead blue. They realized they had a major advantage at that engagement and b-lined straight for it. Clakey (for all his faults) is baller on objective control. They had Vulcan in their pocket, but their positioning in those teamfights really let them down. When they throw their lack of experience will lead them to throw really really hard. I hope they don't get relegated though cause I reckon they can grow massively as a team. Mega is beast too.